Category: Thinking, thinking

Building By Deleting

I’m continuing to work on the novel-in-progress, April Showers 1921. Its challenges remain remaining and satisfying with a few dips into frustrating.

I’ve recently re-discovered the joy of deleting to build and improve the tale. When I began with the concept, it had a bajillion directions that it could take. I wrote about half of them, writing two to three thousand word chapters about the directions, exploring the characters, plot, and arcs. That resulted in a complex novel with a complicated plot, and extensive raw material. As I neared completion of the first draft, I met the muses at a crossroads. We agreed that some matters needed clarified and changed.

With mostly their guidance, I went through, exploring that first mess. Sometimes I attempted to work something into the mix, mostly because I enjoyed the passage. But, as often noted, sometimes killing favorite scenes help. As I deleted them (putting them into another documented that was a collection of these things…just in case…), I discovered how much the process sharpened my insights into the characters, situation, storylines, plots, and arc. With more focused insights, my writing and story-telling became crisper. My direction was better defined; I had more understanding of the final destination.

All of this wasn’t done overnight, but through several days of frequently frustrating searching and thinking. Sometimes I went backwards and then had to retrace my steps.

Now I’ve gone on into thinking of this mass as more like a giant piece, waiting to be sculpted molded, or carved. Unlike working in clay, wood, stone, or other hard, substantial materials, the novel’s characteristics change, depending upon how, where, and why they fit. Some pieces of the novel are solid. Only fine chiseling and polishing are needed. Other sections are thick, and I carve whole chunks away. Some are softer and more pliable, demanding shaping to improve coherency, pacing, motivation, and story-telling.

The process of writing and thinking about writing a novel often intrigues me as much as the novel-in-progress. As every novel is unique, so is the process used to write it.

Got my coffee. Time to write like crazy, at least one more time.

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Self-evident

It’s humbling to think about how little I know, and disturbing to ponder how much I’ve learned and forgotten, or how often I learned, retained, and applied wrong information.

The information was sometimes wrong because we thought that’s how things worked back when we learned it. Then, later, you discovered, “Oh, shit, that works for everyone else, but it doesn’t work for me.”

Yes, this is another Big Lie rant. The Big Lie is that we’re all the same. Eat these foods, gain these nutrients, do these exercises, and you should be good to go.

Yeah, they then admit — you know they, the great aggregate of society, social media, medical professions, governments, you know, they — well, they admit, there are some exceptions. Like, you may be diabetic because your body rejects the insulin it makes. So you’re like, whaat?

Maybe you’re allergic to things. Or you may have problems because your body doesn’t process certain vitamins and minerals well, rejecting them. Maybe you hear things different. Perhaps you hear shapes, or you taste something because you hear a sound.

Whacked, right?

I grew up learning that people that talked to themselves were most likely not right in the head in some way. Now we’ve learned, no, they’re probably fine. Their personality is different from your personality. Conversely, telling me to come out of my shell and socialize more works on the assumption that I’ve made a choice to stay in my shell and not socialize, and not because of the components at work inside me.

Not all people we called slow were slow thinkers, but they didn’t benefit from the learning environment. Too bad for them, back then, because we didn’t know.

We keep learning that there’s a lot that we don’t know, and that what we thought we knew and pushed as truth was wrong. This was sometimes done deliberately to further someone’s wealth — remember how they told us for years that smoking cigarettes aren’t bad? — or to achieve a political advantage.

That takes me to food shopping. Oh, lawdy. I’ve decided to cut down on processed foods and reduce my sugar intake, so I’m reading labels more intently than before. A correlation often exists; if a food is low-fat or non-fat, it’ll be loaded with sugar. If it’s sugar-free, it has a lot of fat.

They say — now — that supplementing your diet with vitamins and minerals probably doesn’t do anything for you, if you’re healthy. You really can’t tell that from the advertising and commercials that abound, can you?

If you’re not healthy, too much of one mineral or vitamin can cause greater problems. All this comes with that caveat, for some people. You need to learn early that you may be some people. You learn by observing your body and reactions to different inputs, studying those differences, and consulting experts when necessary.

And these deficiencies can have profound effects. Constipated, tired, and depressed? You might have a potassium deficiency. Or something else. Just saying.

Consulting experts — or the Internet — doesn’t always work out. Some experts dismiss study results. Reasons vary for why they dismiss the results, or skew them. It could be from ignorance, religion, or false information that they acquired. It could be because they’re being paid to dismiss the evidence, or they’re pathological liars, or protecting someone or something else. This spectrum about why is as broad as humanity.

Even when you find your flaws and shortcomings and address your patterns to cope, it ain’t over. Your body and brain, and our society, are dynamic. Our body is changing, sometimes from aging, sometimes from abuse. Sometimes, it’s just a slow shift because of habits.

As a society, we’re always learning new information, or revealing old frauds, or finding something new about the human body. Our food security gets exposed in unimaginable ways. Consider from this week:

Cocaine in shrimp

Cocaine in salmon

Blood absorbs sunscreens

In each case, these findings surprised scientists and investigators because it wasn’t expected. The sunscreen lotions were most interesting to me. They’ve been around back to a time before governments, industries, or individuals worried about the active ingredients in sunscreens, so they were never tested. That was partly propagated by the good ol’ common sense approach that sunscreen is rubbed on your skin; how the heck would it get into your blood? (That’s typically followed by mocking chortles because doesn’t that seem so self-evident?)

Yeah, there’s a lot that isn’t self-evident, isn’t there?

3

Beep…beep…beep

That’s the sound of me backing up. It annoys many others in the coffee shop when I back up when I’m writing. “Can you stop beeping?” they shout. “I’m on my cell and I can’t hear myself think.”

Sorry.

I’m backing up from yesterday’s writing. Oh, what a miserable day. I don’t know where the muses were, but they weren’t here. Did they stage a walk-out? Maybe. Don’t know.

I knew I had to make some links, slow down and let the story breathe, to improve the novel. That’s what I was trying to do. After a fitful session, I’d written a lot but I felt like it was horrible. I didn’t like it.

The muses agreed this morning. As soon as I awoke and finished thinking about my dreams (more family and dogs – WTH?), a muse rep said, “You know that stuff that you wrote yesterday?”

“Yes.”

“Well, it’s terrible.”

“I — ”

“It muddies the flow and does nothing for the pacing or coherency.”

“Yeah, I — ”

“This is what you need to do instead. First, delete all of that crap.”

“Crap is a little harsh, don’t yo — ”

“And then, this is what you write.” He proceeded to tell me.

I thought the proposal over. It was a lot better, and made more sense. I nodded. “Okay, I will. Thanks.”

My thanks went to empty air. The muse was gone. Guess they were off to help some other poor writer.

Got my coffee and took my first gulp of the blessed hot, dark, bitter brew. Time to write like crazy, at least one more time.

5

The Stick

Carrying a purple canvas shopping bag — walking, because, you know, fitness and environment — was harder than he’d expected. He was almost home, but…whew.

He’d purchased more than planned. He’d gone for chips and a sandwich from the Safeway deli, but he’d added Skinny Cow ice cream sandwiches, a six-pack of Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, and a small bag of pistachio nuts, thinking he deserved these things, and the fare would be an excellent accompaniment to watching Game of Thrones.

Chastising himself because he always bought too much — no, not always, but frequently — no, not frequently, but probably fifty percent of the time — did that sound right? — was fifty percent considered frequently? — he set his bag down for a breather and wiped sweat from his face. Damn hotter than expected, damn hotter than seventy-seven. Felt more like eighty, even down here by the rushing creek, in the shade of the trees by Aqua, one of his favorite pubs.

His Apple watch — an indulgent birthday present to himself — confirmed his impression that he was right about the temperature. With a final deep breath and the stern order, “Press on with pride,” he bent for the bag and saw the stick.

The stick was on the dark grass beside the pitted, gray sidewalk. It seemed like an unusual stick even as it looked just like a stick.

He picked it up. Lacking bark, it was white, about an inch in diameter, although it was tapered, and seven inches long. It wasn’t perfectly straight, but close, and had three nubs where other branches once grew, but was sanded smooth.

Imagination fueled speculation about the stick’s uses. Although shorter and thicker than a conductor’s baton, he pretended he was conducting the Pittsburgh Symphony performing the Star Wars Theme Song, snapping the stick briskly left to right.

A loud crack broke his fantasy. While he processed that sound, a ripping noise followed. The pub, Indian restaurant above it, pizza place beside it, and creek disappeared, leaving a pulsing yellowish-white — ocher, perhaps — space in their place.

The strip was like piece of paper had been torn from the world. He gawked in appreciation and astonishment. The rushing creek ended at the tear, but then continued on the other end.

What the hell? Horror jumping through him, he confirmed that no witnesses were around, then gaped at the stick with the realization that the stick had probably caused this, and then began plotting his escape from this fiasco. He was afraid to try to use the stick to fix this mess. He’d probably just make it —

“Ahem.” The sound shook his core. Jumping and looking around, he saw no one, and then spotted a squirrel. Its dark eyes were narrowed in a way that he’d never seen in a squirrel. It was holding out one paw.

“I believe you have something that belongs to me,” the squirrel said. “Give it.”

Its voice reminded him of Patrick Warburton’s deep tones. “This?” he said. “The stick?”

The squirrel waved its black paw. “What else, numb nuts? It’s a wand, and it’s mine. Give it over before you do more damage.”

“How do I know this is yours?”

“Give it.” The squirrel’s voice rolled through the area like thunder.

Quaking, the man bent down and held out the stick with a trembling hand. “Sorry. I just found it lying there. I was just — ”

“Blah, blah, blah.” Snatching the wand out of his hand, the squirrel turned and flicked it, repairing the tear with another ripping sound. Giving him a side-glance, the squirrel said, “Idiot,” and then disappeared.

The man took a long breath. After a moment, he picked up his bag. “Press on with pride.” The best thing to do would be to go home, have a beer, watch Game of Thrones, and forget any of this ever happened.

Sure. Like he could ever forget this.

 

2

The Lesson

Hearing the sharp meow, thumps, and swearing, she knew what’d happened.

He came in seconds later. “That cat is so stupid. He’s black. He knows I can’t see him, but he still lays on the rug, and I almost step on him or kick him, and he gets upset. You’d think he’d learn.”

She answered, “He’s a cat. You know he’s not very smart. You’d think that you’d learn by now.”

He glared at her for several seconds before saying, “Sure, take the cat’s side,” and stalking out.

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Puzzling It Out

 

 

Back in January of this year, I had an idea that excited me. In this case, the idea arrived as a dream at night, while I slept. Into my dreams was inserted a title, April Showers 1921, along with a gold embossed cover. I knew April Showers. I wasn’t certain what 1921 was about. (I now know what 1921 means in this context, and it was a surprise.) That didn’t deter me. I began to write.

E.L. Doctorow

Scenes emerged like mushrooms after heavy summer rains. I had ideas about what this story was about. I brainstormed in search of explanations and coherency. I drove forward, headlights blazing, through a dark countryside of thought, although I turned down made several wrong roads, and occasionally went off a cliff.

Characters, scenes, and the concept grew in understanding, although not at the same rate. As they grew, details gained substance. Storylines arced. Characters gained dimensions and complexities. Their stories expanded.

As I thought, wrote like crazy, listened to the muses, and sometimes argued with them, a novel took shape. One day, I thought, I can see the end of this. I can smell the end of it, if you will. It was a strange sensation of anticipation and completion.

It was a false impression, like seeing the Rocky Mountains on the plains ahead as I drove west across Kansas and thought, oh, we’ll be there in a few hours. The immensity fooled me. Terry Pratchett and others stated, “The first draft is just you telling yourself the story.” I’ve written a few novels by now, but each novel is unique, so I need to learn the work-in-progress and what’s required. What I had really reached was a complete understanding of the novel.

“The first draft is just you telling yourself the story.”

I’m still in search of the first draft but now I see and know the entire story. Most of the pieces have been created, but now, understanding the story, I need to put them together in the proper order, adding more pieces to complete the picture, and other pieces to finish the tale.

When I began, I created a folder, “April Showers 1921”. Eleven documents reside in it. Two are brainstorming documents. One is the novel in progress, and the rest are trails that went nowhere, or side bar information. I didn’t expect April Showers 1921 to take the turns that it did; my headlights didn’t let me see that far ahead.

As always, it’s a fun ride, fun and challenging. I love the process of exploring and discovering, and then trying to write what I’m seeing and hearing, what I’m witnessing. 

Patricia Cornwell

It’s been a good day of writing like crazy, but the coffee is gone, my ass feel sore from sitting, and my brain feels wiped out from reading and writing. Time to stop, at least for now.

2

The Effect

Sometimes, there’s an effect. You notice it but you’re not sure how to categorize it.

For example, after purchasing my coffee, I settled in at a table to write. A woman occupied the next table. From the very beginning, she emanated a dark and heavy presence. At least, that’s how I felt it. Both uncomfortable and distracting, I was pleased when a friend joined her after ten minutes and they moved to another table on the other side of the shop. The area immediately felt lightened, relieved.

Weird, too, but it seemed like the muses didn’t want to come while she was at the next table. Is it possible for someone to literally repel the muses?

Of course, all of this could be my imagination, or it could’ve been her energy’s reaction against my energy. She had backpacks, too, so maybe something in her backs was the actual source. Whichever it is, I’m pleased that she relocated. Maybe she resented me sitting next to her, and I felt it. Maybe it was my energy that encouraged her to relocate.

Got my coffee. Time to write like crazy, at least one more time.

3

A Doozy of A Dream

I found myself once again in the military, a fact that made me sigh when I awoke. Come on, man. How many times will I return to the military in my dreams?

In my thirties, I was attending a special camp, for elite people. My friend, LR, a colonel, was the commander. We were all wearing our standard Air Force office blues, dark blue pants with a light blue shirt.

I was happy to be there, in the dream. The facilities were a large field surrounded by woods, all of which surrounded a modern complex. I was driving the silver Audi 100 that we had when we lived in Germany. After parking it, I went into the complex.

LR greeted me with a handshake when I entered a building. We chatted a bit, and then there was an agenda briefing, which was essentially that we had guests coming, there would be a dinner, and we were all to make a good impression. Afterwards, we were released to get ready.

Going back out to the Audi to get a few things, I ran into LR. I’d parked the Audi head-in. He told me that they preferred to have the cars backed in, and asked if I could do that for him. Of course, I could.

First, I needed to use a toilet. I discovered I had mild diarrhea. Oh, boy, just what was needed. I returned to the Audi to re-park it and get more items, but forgot to move the car because I needed to use the toilet again. I ran into LR. He reminded me that I said I’d back my car into the space. I told him that I’d forgotten. Then I said, “Stupid of me.” I was irritated that I hadn’t re-parked.

LR said, “No, no, it’s just a small thing. You forgot, that’s all.”

I found a ditch set up with holes in a bench to use as a latrine. After doing my business, I went back to move the car, but I had to use the toilet again. This time, I couldn’t get to a restroom, and crapped my pants. Horrified, I decided that the only thing I could do was take my clothes off, clean myself off, and put on fresh clothes.

Taking my clothes off, I found another ditch set up as a latrine. Someone had put a plastic bag over the hole, though, not to block it, but hanging down, as if to catch it. It puzzled me. But naked, with feces smeared on part of my backside, I decided that I didn’t have time to do anything but use the hole as it was set up.

As I settled into that, the first visitors, a group of ten women, arrived. The gate they were to use was right beside the latrine I was using, but the gate was locked, and they couldn’t enter. Humiliated, I explained that I was naked and having some bowel issues, and I couldn’t unlock the gate. They were sympathetic. More women arrived. I was mortified but also couldn’t help but laugh at the situation.

By then, sixteen women had arrived. The gate still wasn’t open, so some of them sat beside me in the latrine. None of them looked at me, though. At last, the gate was opened. They left.

The dream shifted. By now, I was cleaned up and in a fresh uniform. I was still in good spirits despite what’d happened. I ran into the first group of ten women inside the facilities, where we were queuing for drinks and dinner. They asked me how I was, etc., and then, as a joke, pointed out the restrooms, in case I needed them. I had a good laugh with them about that.

The dream ended.

***

Typing this one out was beneficial. When I finished, I realized that I was worrying over nothing. I was back in the military, of course, because that’s where I’d felt most comfortable. There was order, structure, and accountability in the military. Everything seemed clear and straightforward.

Fascinating how the mind can work.

 

1

Saturday’s Theme Music

Watching the travelers and tourists around Ashland, I often wonder about back stories. I want to know what’s going on in their minds.

For example, a group of three girls and a boy were encountered as I was walking. They appeared to be sixteen, seventeen years old. All were white and brunette. The guy was dressed in white pants, white activity shoes, and a tee shirt with an unbuttoned green, blue, and yellow plaid shirt. One hand in his pocket, sunglasses on, the other hand held a Starbucks Grande cup with a straw sticking up. He sucked on that straw the entire time that I saw him.

One of the girls wore denim shorts with a white and green athletic shirt tucked into the waist with white knee-high socks and running shoes. The second was in jeans with a red shirt tucked into the waist and brown shoes. The third wore a sleeveless black chiffon dress with black spike heeled shoes, the kind of dress you’d expect to see at a cocktail party, or on Fox News. All the females wore heavy make-up.

This was eleven in the morning. I wanted to know what was going on with this group. The girl in the shorts, who was shortest, had a map that she was following, and talking about where they were and what street they were supposed to take, but the others – except the guy – chattered like birds.

I encountered them at a street corner. After assessing them and having my curiosity rise, Everlast’s song, “What It’s Like” (1998) began streaming.

 

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Friday’s Theme Music

Had beers with friends the other night. I hadn’t seen one of them for a few weeks as he’d been traveling to visit family. I asked him how they were, and he said, “Well, they’ve seen better days.” His sister’s caregiver said the doctors thought his sister would go into hospice soon.

Then, as we spoke, “She hadn’t really seen better days. She spent most of her life taking care of her parents.” She’d lived in their house, serving as their caretaker. When they died, about ten years ago, she thought she could finally start living. By then she was sixty and had a chronic disease. Now, five years later, she was going into hospice, even though she was ten years younger than him. All of it terribly upset her.

I thought about it a lot the last few days. She’d never married, never seen better days. She’d a boyfriend for a long time but she was taking care of her parents and didn’t think it would be fair to him so they stayed as semi-serious companions. Then he was killed in a motorcycle accident.

As I walked around, thinking about her situation, I kept humming “Better Days (And the Bottom Drops Out)” by Citizen King (1999). I’ve done this song before, but it’s been over a year, and I think it fits the days. Most of us have seen better days.

Then the bottom dropped out.

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